Liability insurance for side hustles

[rachael talcott]

After reading this thread: https://forum.mrmoneymustache.com/ask-a-mustachian/anyone-ever-been-sued-for-liability/
which contains horror stories of people who have been sued, I'm wondering what sort of insurance might cover someone who is running one or more side hustles.  Umbrella insurance does not cover business activity. 

Example: If someone makes a bit of extra money walking dogs, and one of the dogs gets away and is hit by a car, the dog-walker could be sued for thousands in vet bills, and even pain and suffering on the part of the dog owner.  This is not the sort of thing that a homeowner's policy would cover. 

Is there some sort of insurance that would cover liability related to a wide variety of small streams of income?

RT

[Goldielocks]

Business liability insurance would be needed, I think.   If you set up one business entity, that covers all your side lines, you could just get one line of insurance.   Note, I don't have business insurance.

Alternatively, if you are acting as occassional in-home help, like home cleaning, baby sitter (in their home), mowing lawns or even dog walking (where you pick up the dog at their place), the homeowner's umbrella liability covers injuries to personal workers...

To do this, I would make it clear to the client that their own home owners umbrella insurance would cover damages beyond your fee.   You limit your coverage to your fee only, etc.

E.g., my own insurance covers a house cleaner working in my home when a bookcase falls on her.  As a home owner it is up to me to demand proof of WCB and other insurance for home services contractors I have hired, if I don't want to cover them myself.

I am not an expert on insurance!   Let's see if we get other, better, responses.

[protostache]

I have two LLCs, one for "hot" projects where I could conceivably be sued for something and another for "cold" projects like books and open source projects. On the "hot" LLC I carry a $1 million errors and omissions liability policy on the along with a package of other "business owner" policies. Got the whole thing from Hiscox for $1,000/year.

That said, I'm not an insurance expert either. I would suggest sitting down with the agent you use for your homeowners and asking them these questions. They'll be in a better position to talk about what your actual exposures are and what kind of policies you should think about getting.

[rachael talcott]

I have two LLCs, one for "hot" projects where I could conceivably be sued for something and another for "cold" projects like books and open source projects. On the "hot" LLC I carry a $1 million errors and omissions liability policy on the along with a package of other "business owner" policies. Got the whole thing from Hiscox for $1,000/year.

That said, I'm not an insurance expert either. I would suggest sitting down with the agent you use for your homeowners and asking them these questions. They'll be in a better position to talk about what your actual exposures are and what kind of policies you should think about getting.

Thanks.  It's helpful to know that that is even possible.

[Much Fishing to Do]

There are many layers of protection from liability.  You just have to figure out which are reasonably affordable in both money & effort to do.  I see insurance as one of the later layers, setting up a separate entity that will be the one getting sued is the first.  If a side business gets wiped out by a crazy lawsuit, then thats nothing compared to if the assets you built with your primary job for a lifetime is at risk.